


Promise of Home

by Fyre



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Canon Compliant, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27174529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: Costis approached, laying his hands gently on Kamet’s slender shoulders, unsurprised to feel him trembling like a leaf. It was one thing to watch for ships passing by in the straits. It was another to understand that the army that had devoured his homeland and kept him in chains for decades was now rolling across the continent towards them.
Relationships: Kamet/Costis Ormentiedes
Comments: 19
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, this fic can be read free-standing as the missing scenes of Costis and Kamet's experience of _The Return of the Thief_ , but I'm also incorporating aspects of my canon from my post _Thick As Thieves_ fic [Seeds of Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11298903/chapters/25280076)
> 
> Naturally, there are spoilers for all of the books :)

Costis frowned down at the map again.

“You’re sure?”

He didn’t really need to ask, but his heart was in his throat and now, he wondered of this is what the King felt like every day. Wheels within wheels and always planning for the worst case scenario, suspecting, questioning, watching.

They had been waiting for the enemy from the sea, but it turned out the threat was coming from another direction altogether.

Kamet nodded. He was sitting on the floor on the other side of the table, cross-legged and grim-faced. “The latest markets were being arranged…” He squinted down at the map, then tapped three points that were miles inland, far from the coast. “They’re provisioning, getting everything ready for the push.”

“It might not be them,” Costis murmured, taking the measuring line and checking the distance. He didn’t need to. Even Kamet could spot how far this set of markets had moved across the map near the border of Kimmer, inching closer and closer to Roa.

“It might not be,” Kamet agreed quietly.

The Medes. Kamet’s former masters. Their enemy. The country that had the funds and resources to buy its way across continents to get what it wanted. With their Navy destroyed – thanks to the King of Attolia and Kamet’s information – they should have been stymied.

Instead, Kamet’s clever ears had picked up gossip in the market place and the temple: farmers across Roa had heard from their easternmost neighbours that it would be beneficial for them to head east and set up new markets. People with money to burn were looking to buy everything from livestock to surpluses of grain and meat.

Kamet had sent on his latest intelligence, but they’d heard nothing back, and so he’d kept listening, growing more and more anxious as the markets kept growing and moving. Perhaps there were just some savvy business people, making preparations for a long journey. But perhaps was not a risk they could take.

“They said,” Kamet murmured quietly, “another market has been called, but were waiting for confirmation where it will be.”

Costis didn’t even bother to look east, scanning the map for feasible locations. The buyers, whoever they were, were moving west. The pace was unnatural for an army, which was the only reason he had any doubts. No army could move that quickly. Not unless they…

He swore quietly. “Division of forces,” he said. “They lost their navy, but if they followed in our footsteps, small legions instead of large. Spread thin.” He touched the scatter of marketplaces on the map one by one, returning back in the direction from which they had come. From the narrow straits and a strip of sea they had crossed themselves.

“Zeboar,” Kamet understood at once. He pressed his fingertips white against the edge of the table. “They never bowed to the Mede before.”

“They never had the Mede stepping on their neck like this,” Costis said quietly. “He wants the little peninsula, especially after we humiliated him.”

Kamet rose abruptly from the table and walked out of the room. Costis waited, giving him a moment, but the crack of a clay cup against the wall made him scramble to his feet, rushing through to their small kitchen.

Thin moonlight cut through the window and Kamet stood still as stone, the splash of water across the wall dark and wet.

Costis approached, laying his hands gently on Kamet’s slender shoulders, unsurprised to feel him trembling like a leaf. It was one thing to watch for ships passing by in the straits. It was another to understand that the army that had devoured his homeland and kept him in chains for decades was now rolling across the continent towards them.

“It might not be them,” Costis repeated quietly, though they both knew it couldn’t be anybody else.

Kamet’s hands closed on his, squeezing with near painful force. “It might not be.” And under Costis’s palms, his shoulders stiffened as he raised his head. “You have to go. Find out what you can. We need to know what– if we should be concerned.”

“My place is here,” Costis said stubbornly. “I told the king I would keep you safe and I will.”

“And if we’re right?” Kamet twisted to look up at him. “Do we wait here until they cross through Roa? Do we stand by and wait for the shackles?” His eyes were liquid darkness in the pale light. “We need to know. The king needs to know. He may be the only one who can stop them.”

“Kamet–” The words shrivelled and died in Costis’s throat. Kamet didn’t need to be reminded that the Medes knew who he was. That he was the reason they had lost their Navy and set back their plans. That if they reached Roa and caught him, undefended–

He knew. Of course he knew.

Kamet curled around and locked his arms around Costis’s waist, clinging to him hard and tight. “We have to stop them,” he whispered hotly against Costis’s chest. “I don’t care what else happens. We _have_ to make sure they are stopped. I’ve lost too many homes to them already. I _can’t_ lose Attolia too.”

“We don’t even know what we’re dealing with. It might only be a few legions.”

“Only.” Kamet’s fingers hooked into his back, edging towards painful. He nodded slowly. “Give me two days. I’ll get more information.”

“Two days.” Costis nodded, the knot of dread tightening in his chest. He didn’t want to believe they were right, but if they were…

The next two days crawled by, minute after aching minute.

Costis spent his days up in the hills. Most of the locals were used to his rambling walks. The apothecary certainly paid him well for the brush and plants he brought back. No one questioned the fact he always went out with a hefty pack on his back. No one looked closely enough to notice how full that pack was every day when he left.

He had prepared for many eventualities, but until recently, his biggest fear was that the Mede would use Roa as a stopping point. They had plentiful ports, healthy harvests and very few defences on the coastal city itself. The temple was the only priority and he’d had visions of them burning the town to the ground after looting it for spoils and provision.

His ventures into the hills had been a way to prepare for that very end and, it seemed, it would serve just as well now, if they were right.

He returned well after dark, when the cobbled streets of the town were lit in patterns of gold and shadow cast through the windows of the small houses. From the glow in Kamet’s study, he was already home and Costis rattled the door loudly to let him know he was no longer alone.

“There’s food,” Kamet called through. “Kitchen.”

Costis abandoned his now empty pack and stepped out of his boots. “You’ve eaten?”

“Earlier.”

Which usually meant he was preoccupied or busy if he hadn’t waited for Costis to return. If he was still in his study, if he hadn’t come out to greet Costis, he was working and Costis knew better than to interrupt him.

Instead, he padded around the courtyard to the kitchen, the scent of rich stew making his stomach rumble. He filled a bowl from the heavy iron pot, cut a hank off the loaf of bread, then retreated through to the common room where they ate and relaxed in the evenings. The room was colder than usual and dark.

Once he lit the lamps, Costis wolfed down his food. He was mopping at the bowl with the bread when Kamet finally came through from his study, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

“Anything?”

Kamet nodded, sitting down cross-legged on the other side of the table. “I did some fishing,” he said quietly, his expression grave. “Asked about some select items. A lot of the merchants were very apologetic. They said they were going to market.” He met Costis’s eyes. “I was able to do some calculations based on the kind of trade they’re expecting.”

Costis pushed aside his bowl. “Oh?”

Kamet slid a single sheet of paper across the table to him.

At once, Costis regretted eating his meal. “This can’t be right.”

Five other sheets were laid around it. The calculations. The numbers. The mathematics of it all. Kamet had been responsible for vast households and finances. He knew his figures. He could move the numbers around and make them make sense.

“It’s right,” he said.

Costis stared down at the number.

Seventy thousand.

“How– that– that can’t be possible.”

“Like you said,” Kamet murmured, staring blankly at the final total, his estimate for the size of the coming invasion, “Different divisions. Small groups move faster. Deposit them at different points, let them muster in one place and march from there.” His fingertips curled over the edge of the table again. “You know how many ships they had in Zeboar.”

Hundreds. Thousands. And they’d had months. Months to deposit small clusters of soldiers at intervals, unnoticed because why would an army be in a single ship? Months to start moving their people and have those people buy in provisions, working their way across Attolia’s alleged friends and allies in Kimmer and Roa, paving their way with gold.

“I need to go,” Costis realised, stricken. “They won’t take a written warning seriously. I need to see tangible proof and get news to Attolia in person.”

Kamet nodded, meeting his eyes across the table. “We can’t trust anyone else. We don’t even know if the messenger reached Relius.”

“You could come.”

At once, Kamet shook his head. “You know I only slow you down.” It wasn’t anything more than the truth. “They need to know and they need to know as soon as possible. You can get there so much faster than we could.”

“Kamet–”

“I’ll go to the temple,” Kamet cut across him quietly. “They’ll understand if I’m on my own. There are rooms there and it’s a sacred place. It would be safe.”

For how long? If the Mede were passing through the neighbouring countries, how long could Kamet feasibly stay hidden there?

They needed to plan. They needed to strategise. They–

Kamet got up and offered his hand. “I’m tired,” he murmured.

“Tired,” Costis echoed, thinking of the preparations made and plans laid down and the many, many miles to Attolia. He closed his hand around Kamet’s pushing himself to his feet. Tomorrow. They could begin fresh. Tonight, they were tired and nothing could be done.

They snuffed the lamps and by the waning moonlight made their way to their bedchamber.

Costis wasn’t surprised when Kamet pushed him down onto the bed. Nor was he surprised by the urgency of his lover’s kisses. Or his own. The unsaid truth hung in the air between them, as they divested each other of their clothing and took to bed.

There was a desperation to it that had never been there before, as if they both feared – knew – it might be the last time. Feverish and muddled and messy, they clung to one another through it, Kamet’s short nails scoring his skin as their bodies moved together.

In the aftermath, they lay still, quiet but for the rise-fall of their breathing.

Costis curled his fingers through Kamet’s hair. Longer than it had been, heavy and dark as silk. “I’ll come back and get you,” he promised.

He felt the sharp indrawn rise of Kamet’s ribs against his, the small exhaled puff of air. “Don’t,” Kamet whispered, his hand still splayed on Costis’s side. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m not,” Costis said. Not after all they had been through together. Not after they had come so far.

Kamet shifted, leaning up over him, his thin face sliced by silver and shadow. “Costis.” There was a resignation in his voice, a plea. “Please. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” His expression shifted, pained. “You have a duty. You’re a soldier. They will need you there.”

Costis gazed at him, heart aching. Of course Kamet would lay himself before the blade in Attolis’s name. He would’ve done the same himself. Had done the same himself. And yet now…

He lifted his hand to cup Kamet’s cheek, unsurprised to find it wet. “I _will_ come back for you,” he promised again. “They can try and stop me, but I’ll steal Anet’s damned chariot myself if I have to.”

The sound Kamet made was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Idiot.”

Costis drew him back down into a closer embrace, wrapping Kamet snugly in his arms. “So, so, so.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Costis made ready to depart in the morning.  
> He still slept like a soldier, but I had not. In the quiet warmth of his embrace, I lay awake and thought and planned. He had a long journey ahead of him so at the very least, I could take away some of the burden of planning for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I will be switching POV :) And I will be doing it in the style of their respective books because I am, in fact, a nerd :)

Costis made ready to depart in the morning.

He still slept like a soldier, but I had not. In the quiet warmth of his embrace, I lay awake and thought and planned. He had a long journey ahead of him so at the very least, I could take away some of the burden of planning for it.

By the time the sun rose, I had worked my way through our caches in my study, collecting all the coin we had tucked away. His pack, I had filled with dried meats, bread and small sacks of grain as provisions. He hadn’t interrupted or disturbed my frantic prayers when he emerged from our room, though when I was done, he took my head between his broad hands and kissed my brow, my lips and the tip of my nose.

“You’ll be late,” he said gently. “No one can know anything untoward is happening.”

I grasped his forearms with both my hands. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

He gave me that reckless, boyish smile of his. “When have I ever?”

In response, I sniffed hard and kicked him in the ankle with my bare toes.

“Leave a note,” I told him. “Make it convincing. A message from home. Some special type of ink I’ve requested. Some reason to leave.”

“In case they question you?” he guessed.

“Yes,” I lied, as if I wouldn’t carry the piece of paper with me every day until he returned. “We need them to believe the story we are telling.” I forced myself to release his arms and stepped back. “There’s coin in the purse and food is ready for you. You’ll have to find your own horse.”

He tsked. “I almost thought you would produce one from thin air,” he teased.

I smiled brightly for him, as if I was able to laugh, but he knew me too well and could see the gloss and the cracks. At once, I was drawn back into his arms and when he held me, I could only cling to him in return.

“You have my oath,” he murmured against the thicket of my hair.

I pressed my treacherous burning eyes shut. “I free you from it,” I replied in a whisper.

His thumb grazed the nape of my neck. “You’ll find I’m not so easy to be rid of.” He leaned back a little, drawing his hand around to tilt my face to his. “Wait for me in the temple. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

I believed him. Gods forgive me, I selfishly wanted to keep him for myself. But the will of Gods and Kings are far above the wishes of men.

I wiped my face, broke bread with him for breakfast and we made our farewells.

No one – except him – would have realised that I left half my heart in that house as I walked up towards the temple. I shed no tears. I allowed nothing to show on my face. I smiled and joked with my colleagues in the archives.

And when I returned to our house – our home – it was dark and empty.

As I had requested, Costis had written a note and left it laid on my desk. A simple lie. A trader mentioning new inks a few towns away. Unable to purchase them from afar, going to fetch them himself. An apology for leaving without permission. Signed Aolaus.

Beside it, there was another piece of paper. This one had been folded in one of the more simple patterns. Costis had tried to learn the art of the paperfolds I used in my communications with Relius, but had not progressed much beyond the basic forms. In this case, a small paper box containing a handful of coins.

He must have realised I had given him everything.

With shaking fingers, I tipped the coins onto the desk and carefully unfolded the clumsily-made box to find another note written on the creased paper in Mede lettering.

 _Kamet_  
I make no moon promises.  
Your Costis

I don’t know how long I sat at the desk.

It was darkening outside when I eventually folded the paper – smudged and damp – and tucked it into the secret inner pocket of my tunic. Costis had told me about the king of Sounis and his coat. I had found a lesson there and had a tailor add such a pocket for myself. For my watch, my private treasure, I’d told him.

Now, it held something far more important.

Life had to continue, as if things were normal, but my friends at the temple would understand if I chose to stay there while my companion was elsewhere. Though surprised when I returned with a small pack, they nodded in grave understanding when I explained my current predicament.

I had cultivated a sociable disposition, after all. To stay alone in an empty house would no doubt seem like a certain kind of torment, so they invited me in with a warm welcome. I knew there were whispers about the nature of my relationship with ‘Iolaus’ and most seemed to understand why I wouldn’t like to be in our home without him.

Deep in the body of the temple – the entire place carved into the cliff itself – there were dormitories and cells which had once been inhabited by the acolytes of the temple. Most of them lay empty now, but always prepared for any visitors.

The deacon left me to settle myself in the small, plain chamber, lit by a small lamp. Despite being a good distance under the ground, the room was snug. The living quarters of the temple were built over the kitchens and the fires burned night and day, the hot air pouring through makeshift hypocausts beneath the floors.

Cool and dark, the halls beyond the door were quiet and the walls solid and thick. As I had told Costis, this was a safe place to seek refuge. It was also a rabbit warren with the archives and records rooms giving way to the winding corridors of ancient catacombs. If any of our enemies reached the city, there were plenty of places were a scribe could vanish if he heard about it in time.

So I ate with the priests, I smiled and laughed politely at jokes, I wrote until my fingertips were ink-stained and my back ached. On the warmer days, I would wander in the streets of the town, listening for news or gossip or anything that might give me forewarning of what was to come.

If the blade was to fall, I wanted to be aware of it.

Some four days after Costis’s departure, I heard some traders talking in an inn. The next market had a destination and a time: Put, one month from now. Like ice water down my spine, I knew what that meant. I remembered Costis’s map. They had crossed the border. They were definitely in the eastern reaches of Roa at the very least.

 _Shesmegah_ , I prayed, hands trembling before me as I waited for my drink, _let him reach the king with this knowledge. Let them know. Have mercy, gracious lady._

I drained my cup and retreated briefly to the house Costis and I had made into a home.

With the windows shuttered and the doors locked, it felt more like a cage as I roamed from room to empty room, seeking some kind of calm. In the kitchen, his bundles of herbs and plants swung gently from the rafters, the scent of them fragrant and comforting.

I sank to sit on my stool, the one I occupied while he cobbled together strange and experimental dishes for us, and stared up at them. While never a masterful cook, he took great pleasure when something he made surprised us both.

This _was_ our home. The first home I had truly considered mine.

If the Mede continued at their breakneck pace, their reach would close around this little town within months. If my– if Nahuseresh was with them, they would be looking for me. Perhaps they didn’t know the part I played in the destruction of the Emperor’s fleet, but that wouldn’t matter to Nahuseresh. I had shamed him. Joined the court of Attolia. He would cut me into tiny pieces for his own brutal satisfaction.

Roa was no longer safe.

There had been no hue and cry about the Medes’ arrival. They had not tried to repel them. No army had been mustered to drive them off. That could mean only one thing – like Kimmer and Zaboar before them, Roa had opened their palms to Mede gold. The king had thought Roa a good neighbour and ally. He had been betrayed.

We had been betrayed.

Angry tears scorched my cheeks as I rose from the stool, clambering up onto it and bracing my knee on the cold stove to reach up and tug down several clusters of herbs. Costis had made this place more than four walls for us. He had brought little trinkets and plants and warmth and light here.

Cradling the dry herbs in my hand, I went to each room in turn, fetching any remaining important things: my concealed account of our escape from the Empire, the delicate glass chimes Costis had hung in the window to catch the breeze and the light, the broad, garishly coloured blanket from our bed.

Some pieces were missing, including my favourite decorative – but quite useless – mother-of-pearl pen, so I gathered what I could, rolling it all up securely in a pack.

Before I closed the doors for the last time, I sat for a moment in the small garden Costis had made for us in the courtyard, anger vying with grief, that once again, the Mede had taken my safety and my home from me. This was just a house again. It couldn’t be a home, not with the incoming tide from the east.

And for a moment, in a patch of sunlight, surrounded by the scent of the orange tree and clambering vines, and the tiles warm underfoot, I whispered prayer after prayer to Gods who had no reason to favour or heed me.

_May the Queen of Night turn her eyes away from me. May Shesmegah spare me a painful and bloody death._

And because we all know and are known by our patrons…

_May Immakuk grant me courage. May Ennikar guide my own Ennikar’s steps._

_May he_ , I prayed, eyes closed against the fear and dread coiling in my belly, _pluck me from the claws of Unse-sek._


	3. Chapter 3

The journey from Roa to Attolia’s capital had taken nearly two weeks, Costis pushing himself and his various mounts to their very limit.

After delivering his message, he’d had only a short time to refresh himself, eat and sleep for little over an hour, before being summoned to the war council. Attolia, Sounis and Eddis were all present. His words were taken apart by them and their advisors. Over and over, he repeated what he knew, detailed the specifics, placed markers on vast maps.

The lights burned low by the time he staggered to a barracks room and fell full length on the bed, sleeping like the dead.

The days that followed were much the same. He pulled out Kamet’s written calculations, bit his tongue when people disputed the numbers and answered questions as calmly as he could. All the while, his eyes kept drifting to the encroaching markers on the map.

The arguments were stupid and pointless. The facts were in front of them and while they bickered and fought over it, other markers were placed on the map, places the Mede might utilise since they clearly had some kind of alliance with Roa. One in particular made his stomach turn.

His nights grew more restless as he tried not to think about the Mede landing in the harbour where he and Kamet had sat during seasonal festivals, eating sweetmeats and laughing. They’d never imagined themselves safe, not living as they were under false names and working covertly for their king, but they’d had pleasant, peaceful times in that place.

After several chaotic days of heated discussions and too many sleepless nights, he found himself walking the walls of the palace, startling the guards on duty, but none of them questioned why. They all knew about the war councils and no doubt assumed that was the thing driving him from his bed.

To avoid their curious stares, he made his way up to the upper levels, where once – many months ago – he had heard the voice of a God.

“Ah, Costis.”

He damn-near jumped out of his skin at the voice from the shadows.

The king chuckled wearily, sitting up. He was draped along the lip of the crenellations again, though this time there was no wine. Unfortunate, Costis thought, because it felt like an occasion to get very drunk, if only to silence the whirling thoughts in his head.

“Your Majesty,” he said, more than a little stiffly.

“Ugh. Don’t start that again.” The king lay back down, staring up at the star-smeared sky. His hook swung idly back and forward. “Sometimes,” he declared after a moment of silence, “I want to drop them all in a sack and throw them down a well.”

Despite himself, Costis’s lips twitched. “I don’t think that would be very well received, your Majesty.”

The king snorted. “No.” He waved vaguely with his hook. “If you’re going to be morose up here, sit down. You’re dead on your feet.”

To his own surprise, Costis’s legs did what his body had been longing to do for hours. He sagged to sit at the foot of the wall, bracing his arms on his upraised knees. He folded his hands together, gazing at them in the moonlight.

For a few minutes, they sat in silence, the only sound the erratic whisper of the king’s sleeve against the wall.

“How many times did he tell you to come?”

Costis glanced up with an inquiring sound.

“Kamet,” the king clarified. “How many times did he tell you to come?”

“Only once,” Costis replied, pressing the balls of his thumbs together. “He gathered the figures and I knew he was right.” He hesitated, the question on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t ask when – if – he could return, not with the war council churning on.

Only a few of them knew Roa and none had ridden across the country as he had. They needed his knowledge, his routes and paths that may have been overlooked. Until they had picked him clean of information, he knew he would not be permitted to depart.

The king’s tunic rustled against the ledge as he sat up. “He’s still close to the temple.”

Costis nodded. “He was going to stay there while I was elsewhere. On business.” He glanced up at the king, who had curled up on the ledge, arms wrapped around his legs, chin propped on his knees, his eyes on the sky.

He didn’t need to say that Kamet was resourceful and clever. They both knew that. He also didn’t need to say that if the Mede found him, they would show no mercy. Kamet bore so many scars of his time in their hands when he was a valued slave. It didn’t bear thinking about what they would do to him as an enemy of their Emperor.

“Go to bed, Costis,” the king finally said. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

“You too, your Majesty,” Costis replied, getting to his feet.

The king raised an eyebrow at him, one side of his mouth curling. “Mouthpiece of the gods tonight, eh?”

Costis’s mouth crooked in response. “The miracle will be if you listen to me.”

“Ha!” For a moment, the king grinned, eyes dancing. “You’ve been learning bad habits in your absence.” He swung down off the ledge, dropping soundlessly to his feet. “Good night, Costis.”

Costis nodded and headed for the stairs. He glanced back from the doorway, unsurprised to see the rooftop was clear and the king had vanished.

As they both expected, the next day was long and exhausting. As were those that followed.

After three weeks, tired of repeating himself and certain that every bit of information he could possibly give was in their hands, Costis approached the current Secretary of the Archives. The man had been waspish and snippy in the early days, but had grown more professional with time.

It only seemed respectful to approach him.

“I don’t understand,” Orutus said, frowning up at him. Seated behind his large, ostentatious desk, he leaned back and stared up. “What do you mean ‘go back’?”

Costis wondered if there had been some misunderstanding. “For Kamet.”

The expression that flitted across the Secretary’s face was difficult to read. He adjusted one of his pens, as if taking his time and considering his words. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your intentions,” he finally said. “Your duty is to the king.”

For a moment, Costis could only stare at him.

“Kamet is there,” he said, the words sounding heavy and stupid in his own ears.

“Yes.” Orutus met his eyes. “And we would like to keep it that way.”

Keep it that way. With the Mede rolling in like a tidal wave. With no chance of escape. With a meaningless promise left between them, useless as an empty skin in a desert.

“No.” Costis balled his hands to fists by his sides, trying to rein in his anger. “You begrudge Relius having eyes where you don’t. You have no intention of getting him back or making use of him. It is our duty to get him out. He has provided critical intelligence for the king. He is not for you to cast aside!”

Orutus shot to his feet, slamming his hand down on the desk. “You, Costis Ormentiedes, are a soldier of the King’s Guard. Your duty – your obedience – falls to him. His order is that all the king’s guards are to muster in readiness for the march. You will join them.”

“No.”

That made the man recoil as if Costis had slapped him. He billowed up like a sail in the wind, face flushing with anger.

“Insubordination, then?” He stalked around the desk, stepping in front of Costis, as if he could hope to be half as intimidating as the king or the queen. As if he could even _try_ to be as effortlessly in control as Relius. “You, soldier, are confined to barracks. Any movement beyond the city walls, any attempts to return to Roa, will be considered high treason.”

Costis stared down at him, schooling his expression to blankness. As if he hadn’t punched the king. As if he hadn’t had the threat of a noose over him only to be saved. As if he hadn’t reached out and caught the king with the whisper of the God of Thieves still in his ear. As if he hadn’t raced through deserts and mountains with Kamet’s life in his hands, death at every turn.

It was only high treason if the king decreed it so.

“Yes. Sir.” He turned and marched from the Secretary’s office.

In the hall, the corridor that led towards the barracks was on the right.

Costis didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder before turning sharply left and marching in the direction of the audience chamber, where the king and queen were to hold court.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Orutus demanded, voice deflated to a shocked squeak. The man dashed behind him, stepped in front of him, tried to block his way. “You can’t think he’ll agree, you fool! And what if you go? What then, hm?

Costis stared ahead, marching on like a bull at a mill-wheel, no other purpose but to get to the king.

“You think they won’t have eyes?” Orutus demanded, bobbing around him like an angry chicken. “You think they won’t be watching for people coming _in_ from Attolia?”

The flight of stairs slowed the man down, but he caught up, stuttering and gasping as Costis reached the audience chamber, striding in without waiting to be announced. Without hesitation of preamble, Costis came to attention in front of the thrones, ignoring the other petitioners.

“Your Majesties,” he said, staring at a point beyond the thrones, unable to face looking them in the eye, for fear of what he might see. “I seek your leave to return to Roa.”

“To Roa.” The king sounded placid. “And why would you want to do that?”

He knew. Of course he did. Damn the man. “Orutus intends to leave Kamet to the mercy of the Mede. I cannot allow that to happen, my King.”

Orutus sputtered in indignation. “If Costis is followed back to Roa, what then?” he demanded.

Somewhere to the side of the room, someone cleared their throat “The risk is too great that both will be killed, your Majesty,” Relius spoke, which was almost enough to make Costis turn in surprise. The former Secretary and the current one had been butting heads for weeks.

He risked a glance at the royal couple, hoping his desperation wasn’t showing on his face. The king’s brow was creased and he opened his mouth to speak, but the queen reached over and touched his arm lightly.

“Kamet has served his purpose,” she said.

Costis felt as though she had stepped off the dais and slapped him. He clenched his teeth against a response, staring beyond them again.

She continued quietly, her voice still carrying to every ear. “To risk Costis as well as Kamet is poor tactics, I agree. However, we must consider that if we order him to remain with the guard, his heart is unlikely to be in his work.”

Heat crawled up the back of his neck, but he kept his expression fixed. Gods above and below, had he made himself too plain? He darted a guarded look at her and was almost certain he saw the flicker of a smile touch the corners of her lips.

“And how embarrassing for us all,” she murmured, and at once Costis realised that her words weren’t purely for him, “if he were to take a lesson from a poor role model and abandon his responsibilities altogether.”

Costis’s eyes flicked sidelong to the king, who was sheepishly eyeing his boots. There hadn’t been a person in the palace who hadn’t heard about the king throwing down his ring and either offering or threatening to abandon them.

Movement in front of him made his attention snap back to the queen, standing before him, tranquil and grave.

“I cannot in good conscience risk the men to ensure your safety,” she said, gazing at him, the intensity of her dark eyes still staggering after all this time. “If you go alone, you may lead to Kamet the very thing you fear.” Her eyebrows lofted. “Do you wish to take that chance?”

Like a Thief who had stolen away a queen who had done him grave harm because he loved her. Like a slave who had risked his life to flee only to come back and save a stupid Attolian from a well when he had no reason to do so.

“I do,” he said simply.

He was the only one close enough to see the softening of the lines around her eyes, the hint of a shadow of a smile. “Then go.” And, as if threading the king’s unspoken support through her words, she offered him the benediction of Eddis. “And be blessed in your endeavours.”


	4. Chapter 4

Mede ships had docked further up the coast.

In my first two weeks without Costis, I had ventured out of the temple onto the rocky promontory overlooking the curving arc of the coastline. Every time I went, I could see specks on the water, but they were too far away and indistinct, so I’d tried to imagine happier thoughts.

Nothing travels as quickly as gossip.

Within hours of the ships first appearing on the horizon, I heard whispers of it at my desk in the temple. Messengers running back and forth. Discussions passing from desk to desk, until they reached me.

“Bringing provisions,” one sage Ferrian suggested.

“Or seeking water?” another suggested.

I smiled my most amiable smile. “Or perhaps, they have come to view the beautiful scenery?”

My colleagues hooted with laughter. The Mede snobbery for any culture but their own was well-known. I hadn’t realised it until I shook loose their shackles. Civilisation simply had different faces in different places, but I had been too blind to see it.

I bent back over my work, but the page seemed to blur before me and blots of ink dropped onto the page. Biting down on a curse, I fetched a fresh page and began my work anew, trying to ignore the way my pen shook in my hand.

From that day on, I only ventured onto the cliff side in the quiet of the evening, when most of my fellows had departed for their homes and the night was quiet. In the twilight, the city glittered like a constellation and, for a brief moment, I could pretend that my enemies weren’t settled in comfortably not ten miles away.

They had set up a temporary camp, according to the flapping tongues of the people who came and went in the temple. According to fishermen at the next town, they were buying up any surpluses that came their way, no doubt provisioning their even grander army.

So far, from what I could tell, none of them had ventured further down the coast, but I couldn’t take the risk. The temple became haven and prison and – to silence unwanted questions – I feigned illness. Nothing serious enough to have me cast out of the temple as a plague-carrier, but enough that I could work quietly and slip back to my chamber with no one querying it. Headaches as the seasons changed, the spring rains giving way to heat.

The news still flowed in. Various scholars from other countries started discreetly packing up and departing for their homelands, whether called back or fleeing, I could not be sure. None of them said. Most were present one day and gone the next.

The temple grew steadily quieter.

Even if Roa had granted access to the Mede, there were plenty of people who were unimpressed by the decision Occasionally, a bold one would mumble that he hoped the king’s purse was pleasantly fatted by it. Sometimes, they would huff and sigh and lament the shortages of certain products which farmers had chosen to sell as surplus to line their own pockets.

I remember making them laugh by saying I hoped the Mede appreciated the smallest and most forlorn of fowl. I was not joking. The provisions to the temple had been hard hit and the modest meals provided were considerably smaller.

Still, I took refuge in the fact I had food and a bed and so far, no one had come looking for me.

Little by little, the army was on the move and gradually inching closer. I didn’t go to look when some of the acolytes called from the clifftop, declaring they could see the armour in the sunlight and the procession. I was trying too hard not to be sick.

They set up camp outside of our town, soldiers seen in our streets, doing trade, no doubt eyeing the colourful labyrinth of houses with derision and suspicion.

Looking for someone, one of my fellows reported, shaking his head with a chuckle. My heart sank like a rock. Who, another wondered, could they possibly know in this little backwater of scribes and fishermen. A traitor, the first laughed even more loudly. Imagine. A traitor of the Mede Empire, here!

I had masked my emotions for more than two decades, but that was enough to almost shatter the practised façade. Still I forced a smile and said “that sounds like something a traitor would say, if he wanted to remain hidden.”

They burst out laughing and I grinned like a fool until I could hide over my work again, sweat soaking through the back of my tunic despite the coolness of the temple.

For two days after that, I claimed my headaches had returned and closed my door, bolting it shut. I prayed until my voice was hoarse and my throat dry. I tried to divert myself re-reading the few scrolls I had with me. I paced.

Eventually, deep in the dark of the night, I lit a lamp, laid out my writing tools around me, then stretched on my belly and began a translation of another of the tablets of Immakuk and Ennikar. Costis had not yet read them all and it would be most remiss of me not to have them waiting when he returned.

When.

How that little voice parroted in my mind that I was a fool. That he would not return. That he could not. That he had a duty to his king and his country.

I believed he would return. I knew he would. It was only a matter of when.

He was a very stubborn man, my Costis.

Days crawled by, stretched out by constant fear.

I had survived worse, I told myself. They could not be sure I was here. They were seeking a known Mede traitor. No one in Roa knew that of me. There would be no Namreen. No wild chases across the desert. I simply had to stay quiet and hidden. I could do that. I had done that for all the years of my master’s service, nothing more than a busy little shadow.

Sometimes, I joined the communal meals.

They were more subdued now, the presence of the army an uncomfortable reminder that we were one of the towns closest to the Attolian border. One of my colleagues observed tersely that it was like being caught between a cliffside and a sheer canyon.

The townsfolk weren’t sure what to make of the matter either, which was some small comfort. The Mede weren’t enemies, but they _were_ the enemies of Roa’s allies. Did that make things right? Or wrong? The debates over hunks of bread and soup passed back and forth, making me feel more and more unhappy by the hour.

Still, better to be informed, so I did as I always did: I listened and I remembered, gathering up what intelligence I could, shoring it up for later use, should I make it out of the town alive.

Sometimes, in the night, I stared into the dark, wondering if I should have followed Costis’s lead and tried to make my way back to Attolia alone. With so many people departing, it wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows.

I was living on a knife’s edge once more and I hated it. Hated how easily I slipped back into old habits and behaviours, reining in anxious twitches and careful not to jump at unexpected shadows. My work didn’t suffer. I would not allow it. It gave me a focus and a purpose, though every time boots and sandals scuffed in the halls of the temple, my heart turned to stone.

People came and went all the time: messengers, people delivering supplies, couriers, acolytes.

I never moved, never flinched, seemingly calm and ignoring them, until one day, one of them stopped by my desk and carelessly dropped a packet beside my paper. I must’ve made some sound of thanks, because he wandered away, handing out packets to others further down the room.

I waited, finishing the line I was working on, then set down my pen and turned over the packet.

It looked like any missive sent up from the town, no doubt some bill or other redirected to the temple. I broke the seal holding it close and very nearly lost my composure when a folded star peeped between the folds.

I carried it over to the deep cut windows, blocking the sight of it with my body. I often read troublesome pages by the windows for more light, so no one paid any attention as I opened up the star with shaking hands. It was clumsily folded, not well done. Not Relius.

_Your room. I will wait._

There was no name, but I knew his hand as well as I knew my own.

Costis.

Making a show of huffing dismissively, I crushed the paper and shoved it in the pocket of my trousers, then returned to my desk. I couldn’t rush away. It would raise questions. So I worked and tried to calm the thrumming of my heart until I finished the page I had been copying.

When it was done, I turned in my papers for the day, made small talk with people as I walked the length of the room, then turned into the hall that led down to the dormitories, my heart racing like a rabbit’s.

I lit my lamp from the large lantern by the doorway and hurried on. My room, he had written. How did he know which was mine? How could he tell?

I learned the answer when I opened the door.

For a split-second, panic hit me at the sight of a stranger lying on my bed, half-wrapped in our blanket. Then the stranger opened his eyes and I knew him.

“Shut the door,” he said softly, sitting up.

I did so, staring at him. His hair was longer, unruly, his face covered by a shaggy beard. That shouldn’t have bewildered me so – not after our time in the Taymets – but the colour did. Every hair on his head was a deep, rusty red, convincingly natural, making his sun-bronzed skin seem more burnished and coppery than usual.

He grinned at me. “Dramatic, isn’t it?”

I nodded, crossing the floor to reach out and touch him. As if he might vanish. As if I might be imagining him. But even I would never have imagined him turning the colour of a carrot. His beard grazed my palm and he caught me and the lantern, even as I folded down into his embrace.

“You came back.” The words hitched in my throat.

He set aside the lamp, then curled his broad hand across the back of my neck. “No moon promises,” he whispered close to my ear. He gathered me close, no doubt feeling how much I was shaking, and held me. He didn’t need to give me words. He was there and it was enough.

It was only when footsteps sounded in the hall that I made myself pull back, trying to gather myself, realising the new predicament we were in.

“We leave after dark,” he said, as if he plucked the fears from my head. “I brought you clothes.”

I laughed weakly. “And this?” I asked, tugging on a hank of his red hair. “Will I need this?”

He made a face. “One is enough. Two would be a spectacle.” He still had his arm around me and I loved him for that, steadying me. “There will be soldiers in the town, but I know the streets well enough to avoid them.”

Like the Namreen again.

“And we go back to Attolia?”

He shook his head grimly. “It’s too late for that. Their army is spread too wide.” He searched by face, eyes clear and bright in the lamplight. “If you want to stay here, we can.”

“And out there?”

“Out there, I have somewhere I can keep you safe.” He cupped my cheek in his callused hand. “No moon promises.”

I leaned up to kiss him. “No moon promises,” I echoed. “We leave after dark.”


	5. Chapter 5

Costis hated to lie to Kamet, but he was worried.

The streets of the town were thronged with the Mede soldiers. Allegedly, according to the murmurs he’d heard as he tried to work his way back to Kamet, they were very genial guests, enjoying Roan hospitality and enjoying the culture.

That was a common lens to view them through. Costis knew better.

They were soldiers who had been on a long march and the end was in sight. Their invasion was coming and they knew many of them would die, so they were indulging themselves before the final push for the pass. On one hand, that was good. They would be sloppy and probably drunk. On the other, the number of them could pose a threat.

He checked over Kamet’s clothing, casting a prayer up to Eugenides that he could steal them both out of the city with this ridiculous plan. He was no Thief, but the God favoured his King and Costis had to believe that counted for something.

“This looks foolish,” Kamet said, peering down at himself. There was a waver in his voice and Costis could hardly fault him for it. “I’m no warrior.”

“I stole it from a soldier about your size,” Costis said, adjusting the buckle at Kamet’s collar. “The army has taken in all shapes and sizes. You won’t get a second look dressed as one of them.” He gave the smaller man’s shoulder a warm squeeze. “Hiding in plain sight.”

Kamet ran a hand uncertainly down the front of the tunic. No armour. That would have been too noticeable, but most of the soldiers carousing in the town had left their armour in camp. “If anyone approaches us?”

Costis couldn’t help smiling at him. “You’re good at thinking on your feet,” he said. “I’m hoping they won’t, but if they do–”

Kamet nodded. “I’ll think of something.”

They couldn’t take much with them, not without raising questions. Costis saw the way Kamet’s eyes lingered on their blanket, but it was too big and unwieldy to bundle up and carry through the town. The clothes could be left behind, and everything else fitted into Costis’s messenger bag.

“We’ll get another later,” he promised. “I have replacements at the safe house.”

By the light of the lamp, Kamet’s expression was tense. “Let’s go.”

The temple was quiet, most of the hallways empty and dark. They had waited until the communal mealtime to slip away, and according to Kamet, the temple had no guards. They saw no reason, when the doors were always open to worshippers.

Together, quiet as mice, they made their way through the winding halls and up the stairway that led to the clifftop. By his side, he heard the short, sharp breath Kamet took as they stepped out into the crisp night air.

Below them, the town was a scatter of glowing lamps in windows and strung about the main squares. Costis glanced up at the sky, the curve of the moon casting a thin silvery light, then snuffed the lamp, leaving it beside the doors of the temple.

“Follow my lead,” he murmured, and started down the winding path.

With the white stone and pale light, the pathway wasn’t difficult to navigate, but more than once, Costis reached back to steady Kamet over the steeper steps. They both knew them well, but the moonlight could be deceptive when it came to the depth of the shadows.

At the bottom of the cliff, the road wound back into the town, which was the direction they needed to go, to reach the safe path out to the foothills.

Kamet touched his arm. “This safe place you have for us,” he murmured. “Does it have caggi?”

Costis snorted in spite of himself. Sadly not,” he said, keeping his expression blank. “Only rabbit.”

“Ah.” Kamet tsked. “Maybe next time we flee for our lives.” He gave Costis’s arm another squeeze, his smile quick as a kingfisher in the pale light, then strode on ahead, marching towards the streets as if he had every reason to be there.

By the time they reached the streets, lit by pale glows from lamps in the windows, they were walking side by side. All the same, Costis recognised the change in Kamet’s posture. He did it so naturally, as if he had donned a mask for his whole body, carrying himself with a lazy confidence that Costis had noticed in the other soldiers he had seen.

“Talk to me,” Kamet said quietly, smiling a bit too widely. “Walking in silence doesn’t look normal.”

Costis nodded, adding a bit more of a roll to his step, as if he had been indulging, but was still steady enough to walk. “The harbour gets lit up,” he said, nudging at Kamet’s arm. “All the lanterns reflecting on the water. S’beautiful.”

“Another time,” Kamet replied shortly. “Where is this room of yours?”

Costis waved a hand grandly towards the side-street they needed to get to. “Not far, little master. I have bread and wine and–”

“Look at that!” The voice shouted in Mede. “Hair of fire!”

Kamet’s expression didn’t change, though Costis recognised the line of tension in his shoulders. “All real too,” he said, turning to grin at the approaching men. Three of them. None as small as Kamet, but likewise, none as tall as Costis. Still armed, though, and still sober enough to be a problem.

“And as free as they say?” One of them cast a speculative look over Costis that needed no interpretation.

“What are they saying?” he demanded in Roan, nudging at Kamet’s arm, as if he didn’t understand every word.

“We call your hair beautiful,” one of the men said with a hoot of laughter.

“You are handsome man,” Kamet said in the same thickly-accented Roan, as if he had never spoken it before. As if he wasn’t fluent. “They say I have good fortune.” He looked back at the leering man and switched back to Mede. “I will find out soon.”

The three men roared with laughter and one made a gesture, thumb jutting between his fisted fingers.

The disdainful look that crossed Kamet’s face wouldn’t have looked out of place on Nahuseresh. He folded one hand in fist and hooked a finger of his other hand through his curled fingers.

This clearly had some meaning because all three men stared at Kamet, then tilted their eyes up to Costis. Whatever it meant, he had a feeling that grinning like a drunk idiot and flexing his arms was the right play, which only made the Mede soldiers hum in respectful admiration. One of them made another gesture and was immediately struck from either side by his fellows.

“You have good pleasure!” One of them said. “Much pleasure.”

“We will,” Costis said cheerfully, socking Kamet on the arm and wheeling him around. “Come along, little master. My bed is cold.”

Kamet cast a salute back and said something in Mede that Costis didn’t quite catch. From the muffled laughter and hoots of appreciation of the soldiers, he could take a wild guess.

“I didn’t catch that last bit.”

Under his arm, Kamet was ramrod straight. “Plenty more to go around,” he said, a sharp edge to his voice.

Costis grimaced. “Ah. We might have had company?”

Kamet nodded, his shoulders sagging as they turned into the side street, this one darker and deserted.

“They won’t follow?”

He shook his head. “Even Mede soldiers have a code among their brothers,” he murmured, sounding suddenly tired and frail. Still he looked up at Costis and a shadow of a smile darted across his face. “I think your broad arms worried them.”

Costis kept his arm around Kamet’s thin shoulders as they wound through the narrow backstreets since there was no one to see them. Kamet was shivering now, and the ground underfoot was uneven, so Costis kept them steady until they reached the end of a street flanked by fruit trees.

He stopped there, glancing back to make sure they were unseen, then hurried Kamet up under the shadows of the trees.

Neither of them spoke as they made their way up the hillside, keeping to the edge of the silvery path the moonlight cast between the trees. As they walked, Costis reached up, plucking down any fruit that was ripe enough to come away in his hand, offering a juicy pear to Kamet.

Kamet gave him a weak smile, biting into the pear.

Only when they crested the hill and veered off inland did Kamet exhale in relief.

“Mountains, this time?” he inquired, almost sounding relaxed. “Or a desert again?”

Costis cut a slice off his own pear. “Neither,” he replied. “It’s quite a walk, but nothing like the Taymets.” He flashed a grin down at his lover. “I planned ahead this time. We have springs on the way, plenty of wild game.” He nudged Kamet gently. “I even brought a cook pot.”

Kamet made a sound that turned from a laugh to a choked-off sob, stumbling to a stop. His hands clenched and unclenched by his sides, his ribs heaving with the effort of catching his breath.

Wordlessly, Costis abandoned pear and knife, stepping close to wrap Kamet in a crushing embrace. It had helped in the past, he’d found, letting Kamet hold on, to anchor and steady himself. He cupped Kamet’s dark head, said nothing, only holding him.

“Stupid,” Kamet hissed against his ribs, his fingers biting painfully into Costis’s back. “This is foolish.”

“No,” Costis murmured. “You’re allowed to be relieved, whatever shape it takes.”

Kamet’s gulping breaths rose and fell against his belly, but little by little, they eased and he loosened his grip, stepping back and scrubbing at his face with both hands. He took a deeper breath, straightening up.

“We need to get to your safe place,” he said. “Which way?”

Costis retrieved his knife and his pear from the long night-damp grass. “This way,” he said and they walked on in the moonlight.


End file.
